News:

Reading the forum on your cell phone? There's an easier way. We've enabled a Tapatalk app that makes browsing the forum a whole lot easier. Check it out in the iPhone or Android store if you don't own it already.

I was climbing the lower portion of Central on Webster and we hadn't roped up yet. We we heading to the Green Chasm. I snagged a crampon on my pants leg and went for about 250 feet before I stopped. Mountain Rescue had to come get me.

Looking back I had a lot more fitness than experience. I got lucky enough to learn from it. It takes a lot longer to learn to climb ice than rock.

So not my whipper but I just bore witness to this and, being fairly new to climbing, figured I'd ask the experienced opinions of this forum. The short story is I was belaying my friend up Thriller Arete and he had one cam placed on the southern face just above the trail and a second on the face right over the ledge. He was maybe one to two feet to the left of his second cam and maybe four or five feet up when he got stuck and was feeling pretty pumped. He told me to take, so I took as much as I could without pulling him off, and he warned me he was going to hop down. When he did his 2nd cam blew out and he bounced off the ledge and swung down to the trail below.

I'm not too sure exactly how things went in the second or so it happened but I felt the pull on the rope and hopped forward and down from the rock I was belaying on towards the trail and the crag. The last I really remember seeing was him hitting the ledge as I was going forward. In the end his first cam held, I was hanging a few inches off the ground, and he swung back in towards me so the rope at least kept him from hitting the ground full force. Thankfully the worst he came off with was a sore butt cheek and a stiff neck.

Looking back at it the grade was definitely above what he'd led before and he thinks that he swung too much on the shallow cam rather than falling straight on it causing it to pivot and blow. I can't really speak to what was going on on his end of the line but as a belayer was there more I should have done? I was maybe 6 or so feet back from the rock so I probably could have been a bit closer in, but I didn't know if I maybe hopped a little earlier to soften the catch the second cam wouldn't have been so likely to pop?

Like I said, I've only gotten into climbing this summer and, being the first serious lead fall I've caught, I was wondering how better to handle it next time.

Logged

darwined

Cams shouldn't be blowing because the leader needs to take a hang. That was shitty gear. Ask your buddy if he plans on falling on gear that won't hold body weight. If he says yes, find a new partner. Not sure if there's anything you could've done differently. At least he didn't crater.

If the cam was bad--which it obviously was--there's nothing you could have done to make it "better" and hold. One of the things that pisses me off is the attitude of so many newer climbers who think cams are automatically bomber. They are not. Lowe did a study sometime in the '80s of all the cams on the market (granted, that was basically Friends, their own stuff, maybe metolius, and a variety of weird stuff like Bivos, but the principle holds) and concluded that in less than optimum placements they would blow up to 50% of the time. I have actually had a good friend (and one of the best rock climbers I've ever known) deck and break his arm while I was belaying when his Friend pivoted and blew after it had already held a previous fall.

In another thread around here someone mentioned running into a kid demonstrating a nut pulling out of a placement and proclaiming that therefore cams were better than nuts. This kid should be bitch slapped silly. A bomber nut is always better than a cam. Always. In fact, I contend that a bomber nut is generally better than a bolt, because you know the history of the piece and the quality of the placement, because it's yours and you placed it--neither of which is true with the bolt--and in both cases the piece is basically as good as the rock. Granted, a half inch glue in may be able to hold a falling truck that would rip the cable on a #5 rock, but I don't plan on falling in a truck. That extra strength may give a climber a greater feeling of security, but that is an emotional rather than a rational reaction and has no practical meaning vs. the bomber nut in the real world.

I have been known to proclaim that " you could hang a keg off that one" after placeing a bomber nut though I do not go with absolutes all the time. That's a repuglican thing there are times when cams are better than nuts depending on direction of pull and rock style. that being said i will take a good #5 rock any day

One of the things that pisses me off is the attitude of so many newer climbers who think cams are automatically bomber. They are not. [...]In another thread around here someone mentioned running into a kid demonstrating a nut pulling out of a placement and proclaiming that therefore cams were better than nuts. This kid should be bitch slapped silly. A bomber nut is always better than a cam. Always. In fact, I contend that a bomber nut is generally better than a bolt, because you know the history of the piece and the quality of the placement, because it's yours and you placed it--neither of which is true with the bolt--and in both cases the piece is basically as good as the rock.

I asked an engineer who test metal on bridge for the solidity if there is a way to know if a bolt is good or not, and he said that there is no way to test it in the field. As the nut and the bolt are both in metal, there is no way to test any of them. For the nut, we will agree that the wedge effect, dispersion of a downward pull in an horizontal one, is the principle which keep the nut safe. For a bolt, the principle is more like an ice screw: the front part will hold a force downward and the bottom part will hold a force upward. Futher more, the hanger, where we attach the bolt, is like a boot belay on ice...it make the front part bigger. So, we can test the position of a bolt as well as the position of a stopper. (The glue is more to avoid that the bolt make a groove in the rock after multiple fall.)

As a bolt is make to hold 24 KN, it most be a little bit stronger than the stopper, but as a fall is always less than 11 Kn with the new rope, it is not very important. and I agree with Papy that it is more fun to place gear than to clip a bolt in an ethic of trad climbing.

Where is the place of bolt in trad. As we know that in sport bolt are use to avoid the danger of a long whipper, and any nuts or cam placement to make harder move, in trad, gear placement is part of the game. Route finding and strategy to accept longer safe fall and avoid shorter dangerous one is part of the game. As nothing protection exist, like on a slab, and you have to make them, the bolt most be place, in trad, to avoid an injury when you take a fall.

Than, the finest whipper most not be the longuest, but also the more dangerous.

Logged

DLottmann

...I'm not too sure exactly how things went in the second or so it happened but I felt the pull on the rope and hopped forward and down from the rock I was belaying on towards the trail and the crag. The last I really remember seeing was him hitting the ledge as I was going forward. In the end his first cam held, I was hanging a few inches off the ground, and he swung back in towards me so the rope at least kept him from hitting the ground full force. ...

as a belayer was there more I should have done? I was maybe 6 or so feet back from the rock so I probably could have been a bit closer in, but I didn't know if I maybe hopped a little earlier to soften the catch the second cam wouldn't have been so likely to pop?

Sounds like you may have been to far back from the rock... ideally you would be almost directly under the 1st piece of gear, but out of the fall line... if you were sitting on that comfy rock across the trail with a great view of the climb and he placed a piece down low on the route you could have a 60 degree angle there that will rip you off your seat and lengthen the leaders fall... I see this a lot at Rumney.

.... ideally you would be almost directly under the 1st piece of gear, but out of the fall line...

YES! Well said. So hard to get more people to do this these days.Sport or trad, I get into this position as soon as I detect any sketch or hesitation on the part of the leader. And as often as I can if the leader is out of sight. It is often easier to hear an out of sight leader if I stand a little back from the rock.

Logged

"You have to decide to do a flag, where you can broke your vertebrae or a barn door depending of your pro" - the poster formerly known as Champ

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I usually try not to put too much space between myself and the wall when I belay but I'll make it a point now to get right up next to it. As for cam placements I'll definitely keep what's been mentioned in mind as I start learning to place gear myself, including getting some solid nut placements along with cams. If nothing else I have a few different people I've been climbing with and so I've had a small variety of examples of what to do and what not to do from them.